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Cross-Linguistic Variation in Modality Systems: the Role of Mood∗

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Cross-Linguistic Variation in Modality Systems: the Role of Mood∗ Semantics & Pragmatics Volume 3, Article 9: 1–74, 2010 doi: 10.3765/sp.3.9 Cross-linguistic variation in modality systems: The role of mood∗ Lisa Matthewson University of British Columbia Received 2009-07-14 = First Decision 2009-08-20 = Revision Received 2010-02-01 = Accepted 2010-03-25 = Final Version Received 2010-05-31 = Published 2010-08-06 Abstract The St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish) subjunctive mood appears in nine distinct environments, with a range of semantic effects, including weakening an imperative to a polite request, turning a question into an uncertainty statement, and creating an ignorance free relative. The St’át’imcets subjunc- tive also differs from Indo-European subjunctives in that it is not selected by attitude verbs. In this paper I account for the St’át’imcets subjunctive using Portner’s (1997) proposal that moods restrict the conversational background of a governing modal. I argue that the St’át’imcets subjunctive restricts the conversational background of a governing modal, but in a way which obli- gatorily weakens the modal’s force. This obligatory modal weakening — not found with Indo-European non-indicative moods — correlates with the fact that St’át’imcets modals differ from Indo-European modals along the same dimension. While Indo-European modals typically lexically encode quantifi- cational force, but leave conversational background to context, St’át’imcets modals encode conversational background, but leave quantificational force to context (Matthewson, Rullmann & Davis 2007, Rullmann, Matthewson & Davis 2008). Keywords: Subjunctive, mood, irrealis, modals, imperatives, evidentials, questions, free relatives, attitude verbs, Salish ∗ I am very grateful to St’át’imcets consultants Carl Alexander, Gertrude Ned, Laura Thevarge, Rose Agnes Whitley and the late Beverley Frank. Thanks to David Beaver, Henry Davis, Peter Jacobs, the members of the UBC Pragmatics Research Group (Patrick Littell, Meagan Louie, Scott Mackie, Tyler Peterson, Amélia Reis Silva, Hotze Rullmann and Ryan Waldie), three anonymous reviewers, and audiences at New York University, the University of British Columbia and the 44th International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages for helpful feedback and discussion. Thanks to Tyler Peterson for helping prepare the manuscript for publication. This research is supported by SSHRC grants #410-2005-0875 and #410-2007-1046. ©2010 Lisa Matthewson This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Non- Commercial License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0). Lisa Matthewson 1 Introduction Many Indo-European languages possess both modals, lexical items which quantify over possible worlds, and subjunctive moods, agreement paradigms which usually require a licensing modal element. The contrast is illustrated for Italian in( 1)–(2).( 1) contains modal auxiliaries;( 2) contains subjunctive mood agreement which is licensed by the matrix attitude verb. (1) a. deve essere nell’ ufficio must+3sg+pres+ind be in.the office ‘He must be in the office.’ (Italian; Palmer 2006: 102) b. puo essere nell’ ufficio may+3sg+pres+ind be in.the office ‘He may be in the office.’ (Italian; Palmer 2006: 102) (2) dubito che impari I.doubt that learn+3sg+pres+sbjn ‘I doubt that he’s learning.’ (Italian; Palmer 2006: 117) Previous work on the Salish language St’át’imcets (a.k.a. Lillooet; see Matthewson et al. 2007, Rullmann et al. 2008, and Davis, Matthewson & Rull- mann 2009) has established the existence of a set of modals in this language, which differ in their semantics from those of Indo-European. Indo-European modals typically lexically encode distinctions of quantificational force, but leave conversational background (in the sense of Kratzer 1981, 1991) up to context.( 1a), for example, unambiguously expresses necessity, while( 1b) unambiguously expresses possibility. However, both modals allow either epistemic or deontic interpretations, depending on context. In contrast, modals in St’át’imcets lexically encode conversational background, but leave quantificational force up to context.( 3a), for example, is unambiguously epis- temic, but is compatible with either a necessity or a possibility interpretation, depending on context.( 3b) is unambiguously deontic, but similarly allows differing quantificational strengths. See Matthewson et al. 2007, Rullmann et al. 2008, and Davis et al. 2009 for extensive discussion.1 1 All St’át’imcets data are from primary fieldwork unless otherwise noted. Data are presented in the practical orthography of the language developed by Jan van Eijk; see van Eijk & Williams 1981. Abbreviations: adhort: adhortative, caus: causative, circ: circumstantial modal, col: collective, comp: complementizer, cond: conditional, conj: conjunctive, counter: counter to expectations, deic: deictic, deon: deontic, demon: demonstrative, det: 9:2 Cross-linguistic variation in modality systems: The role of mood (3) a. wá7=k’a s-t’al l=ti=tsítcw-s=a be=epis stat-stop in=det=house-3sg.poss=exis s=Philomena nom=Philomena ‘Philomena must / might be in her house.’ only epistemic b. lán=lhkacw=ka áts’x-en ti=kwtámts-sw=a already=2sg.subj=deon see-dir det=husband-2sg.poss=exis ‘You must / can / may see your husband now.’ only deontic A simplified table representing the difference between the two types of modal system is given in Table 1: quantificational conversational force background Indo-European lexical context St’át’imcets context lexical Table 1 Indo-European vs. St’át’imcets modal systems In this paper I extend the cross-linguistic comparison to the realm of mood. I argue that St’át’imcets possesses a subjunctive mood, and show that it induces a range of apparently disparate semantic effects, depending on the construction in which it appears. One example of the use of the subjunctive is given in( 4): it weakens the force of a deontic modal proposition (in a sense to be made precise below). Other uses include turning imperatives into polite requests, and turning questions into statements of uncertainty (cf. van Eijk 1997 and Davis 2006). (4) a. gúy’t=Ø=ka ti=sk’úk’wm’it=a sleep=3indic=deon det=child=exis ‘The child should sleep.’ determiner, dir: directive transitivizer, ds: different subject, epis: epistemic, erg: ergative, exis: assertion of existence, foc: focus, fut: future, impf: imperfective, inch: inchoative, indic: indicative, infer: inferential evidential, irr: irrealis, loc: locative, mid: middle intransitive, nom: nominalizer, obj: object, prt: particle, pass: passive, perc.evid: perceived evidence, pl: plural, poss: possessive, prep: preposition, real: realis, red: redirective applicative, rem.past: remote past, sbjn: subjunctive, sg: singular, sim: simultaneous, stat: stative, temp.deic: temporal deictic, ynq: yes-no question. The symbol - marks an affix boundary and = marks a clitic boundary. 9:3 Lisa Matthewson b. guy’t=ás=ka ti=sk’úk’wm’it=a sleep=3sbjn=deon det=child=exis ‘I hope the child sleeps.’ I will show that the St’át’imcets subjunctive differs markedly from Indo- European subjunctives, both in the environments in which it is licensed, and in its semantic effects. I propose an analysis of the St’át’imcets subjunctive which adopts insights put forward by Portner( 1997, 2003). For Portner, moods in various Indo-European languages place restrictions on the con- versational background of a governing modal. I argue that the St’át’imcets subjunctive mood can be analyzed within exactly this framework, with the twist that in St’át’imcets, the restriction the subjunctive places on the gov- erning modal obligatorily weakens the force of the proposition expressed. This has an interesting consequence. While we can account for the St’át’imcets subjunctive using the same theoretical tools as for Indo-European, at a functional level the two languages are using their mood systems to achieve quite different effects. In particular, St’át’imcets uses its mood sys- tem to restrict modal force — precisely what this language does not restrict via its lexical modals. At a functional level, then, we find the same kind of cross-linguistic variation in the domain of mood as we do with modals. This idea is illustrated in the simplified typology in Table 2: lexically restrict lexically restrict quant. force convers. background Indo-European modals moods St’át’imcets moods modals Table 2 Modal and mood systems These results suggest that while individual items in the realm of mood and modality lexically encode different aspects of meaning, the systems as a whole have very similar expressive power. The structure of the paper: Section 2 introduces the St’át’imcets subjunc- tive data. I first illustrate the nine different uses of the relevant agreement paradigm, and then argue that this agreement paradigm is a subjunctive, rather than an irrealis mood. Section 3 shows that the St’át’imcets sub- junctive is not amenable to existing analyses of more familiar languages. 9:4 Cross-linguistic variation in modality systems: The role of mood Section 4 reviews the basic framework adopted, that of Portner( 1997), and Section 5 provides initial arguments for adopting a Portner-style approach for St’át’imcets. Section 6 presents the formal analysis, and Section 7 applies the analysis to a range of uses of the subjunctive. Section 8 concludes and raises some issues for future research. 2 St’át’imcets subjunctive data St’át’imcets possesses a complex system of subject and object agreement. There are different subject agreement paradigms for transitive vs. intransi- tive predicates. For intransitive predicates, there
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